INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 431 



the bile with the chyme seems further to have the effect of checking destructive 

 chemical changes in its composition. For M. Bernard found that when two 

 similar pieces of meat had been immersed for three months, one in a bottle of 

 gastric juice alone, the other in a mixture of gastric juice and bile, a strong 

 ammoniacal odor resulting from decomposition was emitted from the former, 

 whilst the latter was pure and free from any smell whatever. And it was re- 

 marked by MM. Tiedemann and Gmelin, that when the bile was prevented 

 from passing into the alimentary canal, the contents of the latter were more 

 fetid than usual. Moreover, it is found that the admixture of bile with fer- 

 menting substances checks the process of fermentation ; and M. Bernard has 

 shown by ingeniously contrived experiments, 1 that this antagonistic power is 

 exerted also in the living body. Hence we can understand how the reflux of 

 bile into the stomach should seriously interfere with the process of gastric 

 digestion ; and how, when there is a deficient secretion of bile, or more food is 

 swallowed than the bile provided for it can act upon, or the character of the 

 biliary secretion itself has undergone any serious perversion, there should be a 

 much larger amount of the putrefactive fermentation than is normal, as indi- 

 cated by an evolution of flatus, and very frequently by diarrhoea. Further, the 

 want of proper neutralization of the gastric fluid will cause the continuance of 

 acidity in the contents* of the intestinal canal, which in its turn induces a state 

 of irritation of its mucous membrane, and a perversion of its secretions : and it 

 is one of the beneficial results of " alterative" medicines, employed to remedy 

 this condition, that, by augmenting the secretion of bile, they tend to reproduce 

 a state of neutrality in the contents of the alimentary canal. Moreover, the 

 presence of a proper quantity of bile in the intestine appears to promote the 

 secreting action of the intestinal glandulae, and also to contribute to maintain 

 the peristaltic movement of the walls of the canal ; this appears alike from the 

 tendency to constipation, which is usually consequent upon deficiency of the 

 secretion, and from the diarrhoea which proceeds from its excess ; and is con- 

 firmed by the purgative properties which inspissated ox-gall has been found to 



454. Notwithstanding all its uses, however, it must be admitted that the pre- 

 vention of the discharge of bile into the alimentary canal is not attended with 

 the deleterious results which might have been anticipated from it ; for it has 

 been found by the experiments of Schwann, Blondlot, and Bernard, that if the 

 bile-duct be divided, and a tube be inserted in it in such a manner as to convey 

 away the secretion through a fistulous orifice in the abdominal parietes, the 

 animals thus treated may live for weeks, months, or even years, 2 although they 

 usually die at last with signs of inanition. Of the quantity of bile daily poured 

 into the alimentary canal of Man, we have no other mode of forming an esti- 

 mate, than by observing the quantity poured out from the bile-ducts of animals 

 in such experiments as those just cited. Blondlot found that a dog in which he 

 had established a fistulous opening for the discharge of the bile, secreted from 

 40 to 50 grammes in the twenty-four hours; whence he inferred that an adult 

 man secretes about 200 grammes, or 7 oz. The carefully-conducted observations 

 of Bidder and Schmidt 3 indicate that the rate of secretion is by no means uni- 

 form, but that it bears a certain relation to the digestive process ; the quantity 

 poured forth in a given time being greatest about 10 or 12 hours after a full 

 meal, and then diminishing until it reaches its minimum, for which about as 



1 "Amer. Journ. of Med. Sci.," Oct. 1851, p. 351. 



2 At the meeting of the French Academy, June 23, 1851, M. Blondlot gave the history, 

 and an account of the post-mortem examination, of a Dog that had lived five years without 

 the passage of any bile into the intestinal tube. 



3 See Prof. Lehmann's "Lehrbuch der physiologischen Chemie," band ii. p. 72. 



